LONG TIME PASSING
It’s about friendship, life, love, death, music, women, war, and everything else in between.
Some things in life are never easy! And if those things have anything to do with your friends; well, it can drive you crazy. But because you love your friends you want to please them; you want to be accommodating; you want to spare them and, you, any embarrassment.
So the result is that you end up internalizing your sentiments and ideas as not to piss them off, or get you all pissed off. And, yet, at the same time, you want to let them know in simple words what you really think about their ideas; but, well, not totally.
“You guys are nuts,” I said.
McCall and Jackson’s idea was simple, so they kept saying. The three of us would drive—I own a car–from Fort Bragg, North Carolina—the Army base where we were stationed—straight through to St. Louis, Missouri, and back in three days. I was not buying it. They were convinced it was the perfect plan.
That to dismiss it showed our complete failure to live up to the highest standards of true male hounds. Furthermore, it was not worthy of our high intellect, physical prowess—our manliness.
Denying to ourselves the only worthy goal in life: the hunt for the mysterious and elusive, which to McCall meant: women. Simply put, we were losers if we did not go to St. Louis.
They had been trying to convince me for a while that we could spend the coming weekend visiting St. Louis to check out the scene, and see about putting to the maximum test our God-given rights in the “hunt,” as they put it.
Meaning, trying to get into the knickers of some strange girl whom we had never seen before, and who was not Frankenstein’s daughter.
In addition to getting away from our normal, dreary, insipid Army weekends where the excitement in the barracks was as attractive as wearing red combat boots with green shoelaces and dancing the polka.
That upon our return from such a wondrous adventure, we would have something to brag about to the other GIs who had not been daring, lucky, wise, or men enough to do what McCall and Jackson had in mind.
They kept saying that a two day weekend pass, plus an extra day because Monday was a holiday, gave us plenty of time to do approximately fifteen hundred miles round trip and, according to them, have us a ball.
“We’ll be in St. Louis, what, eleven minutes—tops—and then we’ll be heading back. So when do we sleep?”
“Sleep? Why you want sleep when you’re having the time of your life? Shee-it,” McCall said, dismissively. “Come on, Hollywood, I thought you was cool,” he added, pretending to be offended by my lack of interest, my narrow view of what was really important in life, but mostly by what he called: My lack of cool.
In McCall’s view, one could be forgiven for just about anything but not for lacking cool. That was the ultimate sin.
“Hollywood” was their nickname for me because I come from Los Angeles. For them, Los Angeles was Hollywood; the land of sunshine, magic and dreams. With wide boulevards crisscrossing the city, all lined with palm trees swaying gently in the wind.
A paradise, overflowing with bikini-clad-long-legged-beauties, and all of the above leading you to pure enchantment and ecstasy. It never made any difference how many times I had explained to them that “Hollywood” was as phony as a two dollar bill.
That it was like being on drugs, except that you were not on drugs. Which, in a larger sense, made no difference, because if you were on drugs you would never know it was not Hollywood anyway. And if you were not on drugs and thought about Hollywood, you would wish the hell to be on drugs.
That the Hollywood idea had nothing to do with normal people getting old, or that beauty fades, or that we all die. Or taking out the garbage at night, or getting up in the morning to go to work, fighting the traffic after dropping the kids off at school, hoping that the schools principals and teachers knew what the hell they were doing, but doubting that they did.
My arguments always fell on deaf ears. Hollywood for them was Lotus Land and that was that. We were sitting on our bunks, in the barracks, while I tried to make them see it was insane to drive hundreds of miles one way, and as soon as we got there, just turn around and drive hundreds of miles back.
We had been going around the question for a while. Though I really was not totally opposed to the idea; nevertheless, it seemed like we were trying to do something that was not practical in terms of the time we had to do what they wanted to do.
“Shee-it, I know you gonna like it. I know it,” Jackson continued, totally convinced.
“How am I going to like doing all of that driving?”
“Come on, Hollywood. Where’s your sense of adventure? Of conquering unknown territories? Of dealing with strange lovely women? Of testing yourself against all odds? I thought you cats from Hollywood were the most fearless of them all! What, you chicken?” McCall asked.
“Chicken, my ass.”
Amber Karl McCall. Twenty years old. As black as night. Born on a farm in Alabama with no running water and number five in a family of six kids, three females and three males, of which one had died in childbirth before McCall was born.
“Amber? That’s for girls, man. How does a guy get a name like Amber?” I had asked him the first time I heard it.
“Well, my mama wanted a girl and Amber was a name she liked. She was so set on Amber that when I was born and she saw my big wanger, she got so sad and disappointed I wasn’t a girl, she started to cry. My daddy feeling sorry for her said, ‘OK, Amber Karl McCall, it will be.’”
“The ‘big wanger’ is the part that I love about the brother’s story. So touching ain’t it?” Jackson said. He busted out laughing making fun of McCall who did not look pleased.
Leno Truman Jackson, Jr. was the son of a preacher from the south side of Chicago and blacker than McCall, if such a thing was possible.
Jackson told us that his mother had made clear to him that he was not to use any vulgar language while in the Army. He was a preacher’s son and such vulgarity was not permitted.
“But, mama, all of them GIs use foul language,” he had argued.
“I don’t care. You are your father’s son and you will not use such vicious language.”
Cash made fun of Jackson’s promise to his mother. But, I also noticed he tried not to use foul language himself, though he failed a lot of times.
“Truman, how did you get that?” I asked Jackson.
“My old man was in the Army when Truman desegregated the military. He always thought old Harry showed great courage, so he gave me Truman as a middle name,” Jackson said.
It took a long time for anybody to find out that A—McCall’s first name initial—stood for Amber. We would not have known if it had not been for Jackson, the company’s clerk, who spilled the beans.
He had access to everyone’s personal records. McCall just about killed him when he told everyone about it, even though Jackson was taller than McCall and twice as strong. It took three of us to pull him off Jackson.
“Shee-it, isn’t that your name?” I asked him.
“Yeah, but the way he told everybody, he made me look like I was some kind of sissy or somethin’.”
“No, he didn’t. Come on.”
Now they were the best of friends. In the meantime, they had developed a comedy routine while taking a shower as to who had the blackest ass. It was the McCall and Jackson Blackest-Ass-Shower-Show, and the rest of us GIs laughed our heads off seeing these two guys acting silly.
After Jackson told us about McCall’s first name, he threatened everyone in the company that if he ever heard anybody making fun of McCall’s first name, he would personally take care of it. He was, after all, the company’s clerk and he had access to everyone’s Army records.
That he would make sure to screw up our Army records so bad they would not only end up being assigned to some dump in Alaska and freeze their butts off, but the Army would keep them in long after their military obligation had expired because there would be no personal information about them.
How could the Army release a whole bunch of non-existent bodies to the world? If they were in the Army there would be no problem, as officially they could be accounted for. If there were no records of any kind about them, they were not in the Army, and therefore the Army had nothing to do with them.
And if it had nothing to do with them, it could not possibly give out information about someone who did not exist, who was not in the books as it were.
“I mean,” Jackson, said, “it’d be like trying to bury a ghost. The box is there, but inside it is all air. Shee-it, you’d be lucky if the Army would let you be a civilian again. They would deny you was ever part of the military. Who would know anything about you?
“You’d be as good as dead; NWU—Not With Us—is what the Army would say about your sorry ass. Even if your mama came by, identified you, and told the Army you was her son, shee-it, them generals would smile and tell her they’d get back to her, which they would never do. I know what I’m talkin’ about.”
Nobody ever made any comments about McCall’s first name after that. People started calling him: A.K.
Most of us hated the Army; I know I did. Our reasons were as varied as to why some people like the color purple and others hate it. Or maybe it was because the reality of being just another GI, among hundreds of GIs, instead of bringing us together tended to isolate
us from one another. Thus, the object of our hate became the very symbol that was supposed to make us equal, and united.
Of course, the U.S. Army wants all soldiers to be one big family of happy warriors. With no other idea in our heads than to go out to kill the bad guys, and thereby preserve the American Way of Life!
Or maybe it was that we were all young, some still in our teens, or barely out of our teens, and at that age the prevailing attitude always was: screw authority in general, and FTA: Fuck the Army, in particular!
Or maybe because when we got thrown together, pell-mell, into a situation where we had no control, instinctively we tended to end up attaching ourselves to those who resembled us in ways that gave us a sense of comfort and protection, in spite of our propensity to argue that we were all independent individuals, who wanted to go our separate ways.
Or maybe it was because we all had met in our previous life as cockroaches, and had made a promise that in our next time around we would get together not as cockroaches but as something else. And now we had, belatedly, discovered that in this present round we were all still cockroaches.
There was not one single reason that I can recall as to why Jackson, McCall, and I ended up as friends. Our gross sense of humor was certainly one. That we distrusted authority was another. A further reason was that we had been assigned to share the same barracks and our bunks were close to one another.
We also worked in the same building, though we were assigned to different jobs. But there were a couple of more pertinent, practical, and specific reasons why we became friends, really.
Both of them were in a larger sense more personal than the ones I have already mentioned. The first one was that on my off-duty hours, in order to have something to do so I would not go crazy, I had joined the theater group at the base.
They were looking for volunteers to help build and paint sets for the shows, and the latest was a musical show, Carnival, that I ended up directing. So I asked them if they would like to come by and help us out. McCall’s reaction had been less than enthusiastic.
“I thought you like music.” I said.
“That’s just white-trash music. It ain’t got no soul.”
“What are you talking about? All music’s got soul.”
“No. See, music is jazz and the blues.. Now, if you’s doing a show about that I’m in. Otherwise forget it.”
McCall played the trumpet and he was quite good at it. He carried the mouthpiece everywhere he went, making sounds. He was practicing his scales in that damn mouthpiece at all times. He slept with the thing; he took a shower with it.
He was never separated from it. He had it hanging around his neck along with the dog tags. It was like some kind of talisman for him. You could tell McCall was around just by listening to the sounds he was making. He drove everyone crazy.
The Army wanted him to join the Army band, but he had turned them down. No jazz or blues; no McCall. He was also some kind of electronic wizard, more interested in circuit boards, oscilloscopes, switches, wires, all part of his military job. He was always tinkering with electronic gear.
“If them Army guys put together a jazz gig, I’d join in no time flat. Besides, I don’t like playin’ marchin’ music. That’s for old guys.”
“OK, but could you lend us a hand with the sets and the other stuff for the show?”
“Man, the theater is full of fairies. I don’t like hanging around them fairies,” McCall said—end of the story.
“Come on,” said Jackson, who seemed more amenable to the idea. “That ain’t true.”
“What the hell do you know about it?”
McCall’s words were dismissive with no room for any further argument.
“I’ve been in plays before and I know,” Jackson said.
“Shee-it,” McCall’s famous expression.
“Too bad; there are plenty of broads in the show,” I said.
I knew about McCall’s broad interests—no pun intended—in that department. To be around women would immediately overcome any personal reticence he might have harbored about being in an environment he considered below his manly dignity.
“Poontang? Count me in,” said McCall, his spirits up, or maybe his wanger, now that he saw the situation in a different light.
“I thought you said theater’s full of fairies,” Jackson said.
“You take care of ‘em, I take care of the poontang,” McCall said, with a great cackle.
So they both eventually came to help, which led the three of us to spend more time together. The show was a great success. We had a lot of fun doing it and even though McCall did not score with any of the women in the cast, he was grateful that he could be around them in his off-duty hours.
“Poontang does my soul good,” he said, when the show was over. “I get tired of hangin’ around swingin’ wangers all of the time. This wasn’t so bad. I had a good time.”
But driving to St. Louis and back, all in a period of seventy-two hours, was not my idea of a good time. On top of which there was also the problem that the three-day pass did not allow us to be so far away from our base. For McCall, of course, that was just a small detail.
They had volunteered me because I was one of the few guys in our unit who had a set of wheels, and I was perhaps as crazy as they were. The bastards knew that all they had to do was challenge me to do something crazy, and I was game.
Though, perhaps, having a car was probably a good reason why our friendship had flourished. I had a car and they did not. It was the: You will scratch my back I will scratch your back society.
I had a 1956 Chevy Impala, convertible. Cream color with bright red stripes on the sides, white wall tires, a twin set of shiny Glass Pak exhaust pipes, and the car ran like a clock. I had driven it from California to North Carolina and it was my pride and joy.
“Cash, I don’t relish driving hundreds of miles one way and hundreds of miles the other way just to go spend a few minutes in St. Louis,” I said.
“Cash” was my nickname for McCall. There was a movie that had come out some years ago. The movie and the name of the main character in it was: Cash McCall. McCall swaggered around when everybody started calling him ‘Cash.’ It reminded me of guys who become cops.
Once they strap a gun to their belts, they swagger around with their arms slightly bent away from their sides, their hands and fingers cool and lose, signaling to the world that they now have a gun and are ready to draw it at the first sign of trouble from the bad guys. Sort of like Gary Cooper in High Noon. Cash liked the nickname. It fit his personality, really.
“What, me and Jackson will take care of expenses.”
“That’s not it.”
“Then, why?”
“For one thing, I’ll be doing most of the driving and you’ll sit in the back like a damn lordship and give me static that I drive the way an old lady screws.”
“That’s the truth ain’t it?” Cash said. Both of them giggled like silly schoolgirls.
“The truth, my ass. I know you. Going at a hundred miles an hour ain’t fast enough for you.”
Cash’s laugh was a combination cackle, hungry hyena, and the hysterical screeching of a bird about to be swallowed by the perennial hungry cat.
“Hey, Jackson, tell this fool he’s risking not meetin’ some serious poontang in St. Louis, shee-it.”
“OK, Jonathan, we’ll make a deal with you,” Jackson said.
“Get out of here. You and your deals. Man, you could steal someone’s socks without taking their shoes off and expect the victims to say ‘thank you.’ ”
I was by then wise enough to know I was dealing with a couple of con artists for whom there were no limits. It was always full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. Not that I blamed them for the madness. It was probably what got them, what got all of us, through the day.
“I’m serious; we’ll rent your car from you.”
“Oh boy, that’s a good one.”
I would rent them my car and off they would go and everybody would be cool with that. I would not put it past them to sell the car, and declare it had been stolen.
“Fifteen bucks a day, plus a full tank when you get it back.”
“That’s close to fifty and change. Where did you get that much bread?”
That was just about what we were making as a monthly salary in the Army, so I was a bit suspicious.
“Been saving some.”
“So you guys have this whole thing all figured out, haven’t you?”
“Not true,” Cash said.
“Not true,” said Jackson.
“What’s the matter with your ass? Why you always so damn suspicious?” Cash asked, pretending to be offended by my attitude.
“Cause I know you and I ain’t trusting you.”
“Not trust us? Shee-it, there ain’t a body out there more trustworthy than me and Jackson, right Jackson?” Cash said.
“You’ve got that right, brother.”
“Yeah, the Jessie James brothers in full living color.” They both busted out laughing.
They exchanged looks. It was a signal. It was their game. When things did not go their way, they had a routine they used to shame you into doing what they wanted. I had been around these guys long enough to know their routine.
“So you’s smart ass racist, man?” Cash asked.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I knew what was coming next. Once they got started, there was no way to stop them.
“That’s what I thought. You’s afraid them white trash will start whisperin’ you favor us niggers. Ain’t that a bitch?” Cash said.
“Get out of here.”
“You know Jackson,” Cash continued, “I thought my man here was cool. I really did. Now, he don’t want us ridin’ in his car ‘cause he’s afraid of the brothers. I guess we’re gonna stink up his wheels, or somethin’. Not the man I thought I knew.”
Cash pretended to be highly offended by my lack of cool.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Jackson said. “No more wheel-sit-ins allowed in his car.”
“You and your sit-ins, go stick them up where the sun don’t shine.”
“No can do GI,” Jackson said.
He and Cash started giggling again.
“Hey, Jackson,” Cash said, “remember that day when we thought we was gonna get mauled by them white trash, at that restaurant in town, and my man here stood up and told those KKK thugs to shove it? Man, that was somethin’, weren’t it?”
“Them days are over.”
“You’re both full of crap. I don’t know why I hang around with you. I really must be crazy, or desperate, or both.”
“You love us, white boy,” Cash said.
“I must, somethin’.”
“So, it’s a deal,” Jackson said, with the satisfaction of a gambler who has a hidden ace up his sleeve and he will use it to cheat you out of your money while claiming that he won it fair and square.
And it is your fault for not knowing how to play the game, and most likely you are a real moron to think you could sit down with real pros and not risk losing your ass in the process.
“No, it ain’t no deal.”
Cash started to laugh his hyena’s laugh. He knew what the outcome was going to be. The bastard had my number all right.
This was 1964, and the sit-ins were taking place all around us. Back in 1960, four black students went into a restaurant in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat at the counter, and ordered food.
They were denied service and told to leave, which they refused to do. The police came, arrested them, and threw them in jail. It made the headlines everywhere.
The idea of civil disobedience started with that simple act by those four students refusing to move. It grew by leaps and bounds. Before you knew it, thousands of black students, along with some white students, throughout the South, were participating in these sit-ins.
The civil rights movement was raging across the American South. Everywhere, in bus terminals, airports, hotels, public accommodations, and segregated restaurants, blacks were sitting down at counters and refusing to move until they were served—which never happened.
Instead, the police were called in and the protestors were hauled off to jail. Sit-ins were the new tactic to force the end of segregation in the South, and it was met with incredible violence on the part of whites.
The reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was the moral driving force against the entrenched bigotry, and he was instrumental in inspiring blacks of all ages, and some whites also, to fight in a non-violent way for their civil and constitutional rights.
It was pretty ugly and depressing to see the violence perpetrated against blacks by white bigots who were bent on maintaining the status quo. The only experience that I could relate to happened in Los Angeles, where some cops and some Muslim Brothers had gotten into a shootout.
The newspaper headlines theorized that the event took place because the Muslim Brothers were all black followers of Elijah Muhammad—a self-proclaimed follower of Islam—with his own version of religion, which he called the Nation of Islam.
One of their leaders, Malcolm X, accused the cops of police brutally, while the police in turn accused the Muslim Brothers of hating the white race. Nevertheless, from my distance in California the whole situation in the South, as I followed it in the newspapers, seemed to be happening in another planet.
And since I had never directly witnessed that kind of bigotry before, it never occurred to me that a few months later, after my arrival at Fort Bragg, I would find myself involved in something that I had no experience dealing with. I had been caught in it, and it was because Cash and Jackson were both simply hungry.
We had gone into a restaurant in town to get something to eat, and sat at the counter. To this day, I am not sure whose idea it was. It seemed like it just happened—a simple human act. When you are hungry you go into a restaurant, sit down at the counter, order food, they serve it, you eat it, pay for it, and you leave.
People at the restaurant had refused to serve Cash and Jackson, even though we were all wearing U.S. Army uniforms. They told us they would only serve me.
I went ape shit!
The confrontation got ugly with taunting and vicious shouting from a group of whites, most of whom were about the same age as we were. What was so depressing, at least to me, was to see white girls among them literally foaming at the mouth with their vile insults hurled at the three of us.
They used nasty and vulgar words that I usually associated with dockworkers and not with girls. And though the confrontation did not become physical, it came very close. Both Cash and Jackson kept pushing me back. There were a hell of a lot more of them than the three of us.
I had taken some boxing lessons in the past so I thought I could defend myself, or at least try to deck a couple of those pricks before they jumped all over us. The next thing I knew a paddy wagon, along with a jeep full of big burly redneck MPs, screeched to a halt in front of the restaurant and asked us to leave, which I refused to do.
They then handcuffed us, pushed us into the wagon, and hauled us off to the base jail. I could not believe what was happening. This was the first time that I had been arrested in my life.
I had never been a witness, let alone found myself involved in such a depressing situation. We were soldiers. U.S. citizens! Full-fledged members of the United States Army! We were all supposed to defend the country’s ideals. We had sworn to defend the constitution and die defending it if it came to that. We were all equal.
We were citizens prepared to protect our American brothers and sisters. And yet here were our brothers and sisters acting like animals, ready to fight us just so Cash and Jackson could not sit at the counter and be served something to eat.
And because Cash and Jackson were black, none of the lofty ideals about freedom, dignity, and equality meant a thing to the people at the restaurant, and it had pissed me off to no end. Cash and Jackson had not said very much and I deeply resented them for that.
It was also confusing because I had assumed they would push the confrontation to the limit. But, of course, that was exactly what you do not do in such situations. Keeping your cool was smart. I was not being smart.
In the wagon, I was fuming. “You chicken shits. You losers. You would not fight those pigs. I thought you guys had some balls. You ain’t worth a damn, both of you. You’re a goddamn disgrace.”
They did not say anything. I hated everyone at that moment.
The MPs, just looked at me, smiled a kind of smirk that along with their silence simply meant, “Serves you right you dumb shit for hanging around with them darkies.”
The company commander of our unit, Captain Rowe, had finally come by and gotten us out. As we were driving back to the barracks Rowe said, looking directly at me, challenging me to contradict him.
“Greene, you are a U.S. Army soldier; all of you are U.S. Army soldiers. Politics is not our concern. We’re military. We’re guests of these people, and you will obey orders and keep away from that kind of stunt. Is that understood?”
I did not answer and he got pissed. I liked Captain Rowe. He was a decent guy. But at that moment he was giving me a lecture that I did not need. I felt that he had let me down and I hated him for it.
How in the hell, I thought, can we be soldiers, obey orders, and keep the country safe, if racist pricks were allowed to get away with such behavior? The whole thing was just ugly and depressing!
“’Greene, is that understood?” He repeated, daring for me to challenge him. This was the kind of crap that I hated about the Army. They want you to use your brains, but when you do, they are ready to knock your head off and pull rank on you.
“What the hell were you trying to prove?” he continued. “You think you can come here with your Hollywood crazy notions—I know what they call you. You think you can just waltz in here and teach these rednecks what’s what?”
I did not answer his stupid question and he got pissed. “Answer me, soldier. I’m talking to you.”
“No sir,” I answered.
“Did you by any chance stage this? I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“I’m not that smart, sir,” I answered, even though I did not want to answer. I thought the question was just a cheap shot and he knew it was a cheap shot.
Ignoring my answer, Captain Rowe continued, “I don’t have to add any comments about McCall here, but you Jackson? I thought you knew better. I can see what these two idiots would do. Why did you go there in the first place?”
“We were hungry, sir,” Cash said, quietly.
There was certain finality about the way Cash sounded. It was a strength of character that I had not seen before, but which did not surprise me. It was quiet and powerful. The captain started to say something, but he checked himself.
And for the rest of the trip back to our barracks, he did not say another thing. When we got back, the sergeant major was standing with a couple of other GIs outside the company’s office.
They saw the captain and saluted. Rowe saluted back but did not say anything. He just kept on walking into his office.
“Jackson, you, McCall and Greene, all three of you are restricted to the barracks until further notice. That’s an order,” the sergeant major said.
He was pissed. He turned around and followed the captain inside. All of the other guys looked in our direction and drifted away without making any comments.
By then my anger had been somewhat replaced by a sense of sadness and loss. I was not sure why I felt that way. I was angry more with myself for not thinking about what I was doing, but it seemed to me that to ignore what was happening at the restaurant was just too stupid, and cowardly.
I did not really think that Cash and Jackson were cowards at all. They were not. I had said it because I was pissed.
I understood that for me not being black was the difference. I wanted to understand that difference. I knew that I would never, ever, be in a position to see what they saw, felt, and had experienced in their lives. Exposed to bigotry and racism simply because of their skin color.
I was not being goody-two-shoes about it. It was just that the people at the restaurant were being such racists, and I did not like it. In the end, it had to do more with me than the fact that Cash and Jackson were black.
As we were standing outside, I saw the faces of both Cash and Jackson. For some reason I had expected them to be pissed, but all I saw was a wise smile, kind of mocking me, in fact. At that moment, the whole thing seemed too silly, so ridiculous and childish that I started to laugh. The three of us stood there laughing.
“So you gonna take on the whole friggin’ town and fight ‘em, are you?” Jackson said. “You think you can come here and tell them rednecks what’s what? Yeah, you want to pull your Hollywood crap on them, don’t you?”
“Get off my back.”
Jackson had a very deep voice and he was now using it as if he were preaching. He stood there and preached to us. “The Sermon of the Barracks” is what I called it, later. Filled with images of hell and damnation.
We were all going to hell. He was trying to save our asses and them white jerks were not worth a damn, anyway, and I had better learn that.
It was making fun of the ridiculousness of the whole episode that was needed at that moment. He called Cash and himself, a pair of Negro pussies who could not defend themselves against the white oppressors.
A couple of poor lost Negro souls in debt to me, for I had tried to come to their rescue and liberate them from bigotry, racism, and tyranny, which they had failed to appreciate.
I was the missionary, come in from the revered land of Hollywood; he pronounced it: Holy—Wood. The new Mount Olympus! Where the white gods dwelled.
The way he made it sound, it was a most sacred place. A shinning place on the hill. Filled with good people, honest people, people who were as pure as fresh fallen snow.
God-like people, salt of the earth people, not racists or liars or con artists or back stabbers or scumbags, or phonies, wearing blue Suede shoes and not trying to sell you snake oil. But honorable people, bent on bringing peace and harmony to the rest of the world.
People on a mission devoted to saving humankind by showing what was best in America. Keen on demonstrating to the whole world how to save poor, little, black lost souls, Americans, from them white racist scumbags.
On a sacred mission I was. Yeah. Involved in this most worthy quest. Preaching, but not only preaching but trying to show the gospel of love, tolerance, dignity, and understanding to these unworthy white trash losers.
Cash and I were laughing our heads off and, as I glanced to one side, I saw the sergeant major looking at us through the window of his office with such a stern look that, I had grabbed Cash and Jackson and pushed them toward our barracks.
The following day, the three of us were called in by the sergeant major and got a very stern lecture: If we ever pulled another similar stunt, he would personally make sure we would spend all of our free time cleaning dozens of toilets and, in between such delightful duties, we would have to do KP—Kitchen Police—as well.
And if that was not good enough to make us model soldiers and upstanding citizens, he had tons of other ideas in his head. He would be more than happy to share them with us.
The sergeant major did allow me to go back into town to get my car. But, when we visited the town again, we never went back to that restaurant. In fact, we did not go to any white-owned restaurant. The Army had put fear in our hearts and we knew they held all of the cards.
The trip to St. Louis was now a reality in their minds. I had no other choice but to get on with the program. They had my number all right.
“So what’s so special about St. Louis? Why do you want to go there?”
“Why not?” Cash answered.
The drive to St. Louis and back in three days meant that we would drive like bats out of hell. Not get much sleep, and with all of the carousing we were likely to do, it did not seem such a practical idea.
It would probably mean that I would do most of the driving for the simple reason that I did not trust these guys to keep it at least within a reasonable speed, like maybe a hundred miles an hour. In addition, Cash could not drive because he had no license.
“Cash, you don’t even have a driver’s license, which is about as crazy as anything in life. It means me and Jackson will be doing the driving and, like I’ve said, you’ll sit in the back like a lordship and make your caustic comments about our driving skills. I mean, why don’t you have a license?”
“The pigs took it away from me.”
“Why?”
“I ain’t tellin’ you jack.”
“Shee-it, were you hauling off moonshine, you bastard? I wouldn’t put it past you if you did.”
“Ask him how many tickets he had before they pulled his license.” Jackson said.
“OK, how many speeding tickets you got?”
Cash hesitated a moment before answering. It was almost like he was counting them in his head because he had so many of them that he had lost track. And he wanted to give me the truthful response, which, of course, I knew he would not. His act was just another way of trying to play with my head.
“I don’t know.”
“What the hell do you mean, ‘I don’t know?’ ”
“Well, maybe just a couple.” He finally said, with a sly look.
Jackson started to laugh and Cash gave him his famous dirty look.
“A couple? Shee-it. How’s about twelve tickets?” Jackson said.
“Twelve? You’re kidding!” I said.
Jackson shook his head. Cash looked like he was about to hit him. “But that ain’t all,” Jackson continued. “He got ‘em in three months’ time.”
“Man, that’s one a week. Is that why they put you in the Army? What the hell were you doing?” I asked, not that I trusted he would answer with the truth.
“Taking care of business. And I ain’t telling you jack,” Cash answered.
“You’re just a crazy sonovabitch, aren’t you?”
“Sonovabitch I ain’t; crazy, maybe.” And he started to laugh his crazy laugh.
“Let’s go to a civilized place, like Myrtle Beach, or something,” I said.
We had been to Myrtle Beach, in South Carolina, twice and on the second occasion, we had not done so badly, though in Cash’s eyes it had not been enough.
After all, he had a reputation to uphold. It would not look good to the other guys if they found out that Cash had not scored heavily, as he always claimed he did. I mean, a man has to protect his stud reputation against all odds.
“Oh, no, no more Myrtle Beach, man, them pickings was slim,” Cash said.
“Slim? There’s more poontang in Myrtle Beach than in the whole of St. Louis.”
“Greene, you’re sayin’ that because you ain’t never been to St. Louis.”
“OK, Cash, let me ask you a question: Why is it that when you talk about poontang I understand what you’re saying, but when you talk about something else, it’s hard to figure out what you’re saying? Why is that?”
“Hollywood, you’s a riot. Everybody knows what I’m sayin’, ‘cept you.”
“Jackson doesn’t understand what you’re saying half of the time.”
“Hey, Jackson, is that true?”
“Shee-it, don’t get me in the middle of your nonsense.”
“So, Hollywood, you’s comin’ or what?”
“Is that an invitation or an order?”
Cash started to laugh his victorious hyena laugh reserved for those occasions when he knew things went his way.
“Outta sight,” he yelled.
So that is how we ended up going to St. Louis, with Jackson and me taking turns doing the driving, while his lordship sat in the back reminding us that we drove the way old ladies screw.
Cash’s brother was living in St. Louis and we went to his place. It was in the black part of town and Cash seemed to know just about everyone there. Cash’s brother lived in a big, old, but well restored house.
Cash had told us that we did not have to worry about staying in a motel—his brother’s house was large enough to accommodate a dozen people with no sweat.
“What is this, a cat house?” I asked him, just to give him a hard time.
“Shee-it, it’s the ‘House of Whispers,’ ” Cash said.
“Whispers? What’s that? Jackson, have you ever heard so much non-sense in your life?”
“Hey, I’m cool with that.”
“Yeah, you would.”
“It’s somethin’ white hunkies don’t know jack about, and you’d better not ask any more of your stupid questions,” Cash said. Subject closed.
Cash’s brother was a hood, lock, stock and barrel. Sleek as hell. You not only smelled and sensed that he was a hood; you knew he was, just by looking at him. But that was also what gave him a certain primitive charm. I thought he was the kind of guy, who would smile at you while sticking a long and deadly stiletto in your guts.
He never raised his voice so you had to lean over to understand what he was saying. He never seemed in a hurry. He always listened to you with his eyes half-closed, as if there was nothing more important in the world at that moment than paying attention to what you were saying. Cool and laid back.
But what was also interesting was the closeness between the two brothers. You could see that Cash had a great deal of respect for his older brother and it seemed he made it a point not to contradict him in front of other people. When I made a comment about it, Cash said their parents always insisted the younger brother had to respect the older one.
I had once asked Cash about his sisters, but he did not say much. It was almost as if he did not want to talk about them. I never insisted, but Jackson told me that one of them was born blind, and one of his brothers had died at birth before Cash was born. The blind sister and his brother’s death had been major tragedies for his family.
Then, the motley crew of thugs that surrounded Cash’s brother would have probably brought in armed police just to have a chat with him. These guys’ attitudes could not fool anybody.
They swaggered and acted as if theirs was the Kingdom and they ruled it like ancient African warlords.
The house was a beehive of activity of all sorts. Women, old men, young kids, even a few cops would stop by and have these meetings. Lots of people seemed to walk out of Cash’s brother’s room with happy smiles and, in many instances, clutching dollars in their hands.
“So Cash how come you’re in the Army and your brother isn’t?” I asked him.
“He don’t want to.”
“Shee-it, like he can tell Uncle Sam to shove it.”
“Sure do.”
“You’re full of it.”
“Yup, my older brother got dis-pen-sa-tion.”
“What the hell is that? Dispensation from what? From being in the military? Boy, talk about being full if it, you sure as hell are.”
“Now look here, Hollywood, just because we’s niggers don’t get the idea we don’t know how to deal with the Man.”
“Jackson, did you ever hear so much crap in your life?” I asked Jackson.
“The brother knows his business.”
“Man, you guys don’t make sense. I sure as hell would like to get ‘dis-pen-sa-tion,’ as Cash says. Yeah, shee-it, I wouldn’t mind getting some myself.”
The actual truth, which I later learned from Jackson, was that Cash’s brother had been born with some kind of congenital heart problem. I understood that it was something that Cash wanted to keep quiet about it. What the hell, I thought; it was none of my business.
“You ain’t smart enough to get it, Hollywood.”
“I guess, I ain’t. Anyway, Cash, how in the hell did your brother become a mobster? Does that run in the family? He doesn’t get dispensation from that, does he?”
“He gets com-pen-sa-tion.” And both Cash and Jackson busted out laughing.
I laughed with these two crazy bozos. Once they started, there was no way to stop them. I had to admit their comedy routine made life easier to deal with.
“He ain’t no mobster. He’s a business man,” Cash added.
“Right, put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
“See, that’s the problem with you. Every Negro’s a criminal and only whitey is the honest one around.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yeah, I know your kind.”
“Hey, Jackson, you’re a preacher’s son, what do you think of these guys?”
“They’s fine.”
“Why are you sounding like them? You keep saying that blacks need to speak proper English and here you’re sounding like some ignoramus.”
This was a sore point with him because he could not make up his mind as to why some black people, either out of being too lazy or just simply out of principle, refused to speak Standard English. Preferring instead to speak in a kind of ghetto language, which, in my view, sometimes was better than Standard English.
Ghetto English was more expressive, even poetic, called a spade a spade—no pun intended here—got to the heart of the matter directly, promptly, and skipped the bullshit.
He was not sure about that, but he was not above using less than proper English whenever it suited his purposes. Cash used to get on his case for being two-faced about it.
“Now, look here Hollywood,” Jackson said, “I didn’t say do like I do but do like I say. That’s what my daddy always says. And it works.”
“I bet that church your father heads is probably a den of inequity. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was running a numbers racket.”
“Well, he ain’t above cutting a few corners.”
“You’re just another crook passing yourself off as a preacher’s son so you can rip people off. You guys are all the same, phony bastards.”
“You’re just jealous,” Cash said.
But of course, Cash and Jackson were not crooks or dishonest or phony bastards, and I was not jealous. They were, we all were, all of us black and white, operating in a system that made us all outlaws.
That taught us from day one that cutting a few corners against the powers that be, in order to survive, was the only choice we had. And speaking in other than so called Standard English was probably better in many instances.
After spending a long weekend that had started and never seemed to end, where we probably got about a half-hour of shuteye time—tops—we were driving back from St. Louis. With the top down just enjoying the scenery.
The wind rushing past us making noise like some demented monster while hearing no comments about my driving skills from Cash, who was sort of snoozing in the back.
We were keeping pretty much to ourselves. Hundreds of miles of road teeming with big, heavy-ass, trucks and me weaving in and out of such traffic. The trip had not been so bad after all.
Better than sitting in the barracks and trying to avoid some prissy-ass sergeant coming in and forcing you to go on KP duty, because everybody else had been smart enough to get out while the going was good.
“Shee-it, you know what, I think I’ll ask Andy the next show we do should be The Diary of Anne Frank,” I said, to no one in particular.
“Another show about poontang,” Cash piped in.
“Man, I thought you were sleeping.”
“Why would you want to do that?” said Jackson. Actually, he kind of shouted because of the noise of the wind.
“Why not?”
“You think them military guys would allow you to do a show like Anne Frank in an Army base, right smack in the middle of KKK country? You’re crazier than I thought.”
“OK, who is this bitch?” Cash asked, shouting also.
“Anne Frank?”
“Whatever. Who the hell is she? Does she put out?”
A female’s name for Cash, even if he knew nothing of the woman in question, was enough for him to start thinking with what he had between his legs.
“You ignoramus, worthless piece of garbage,” I said. “I ought to smack you around your ears and dump your ass off here so you can walk back. You never heard who Anne Frank was. You’re just a dumb asshole, that’s what you are.”
“At least, I’m not a dumb, black, asshole, pimp, son of a whore, going to hell, which is what you call me all the time.”
“Well, excuse me for forgetting my manners, Mr. dumb, black, asshole, pimp, son of a whore, going to hell.”
“Shut up, both of you,” Jackson said. “All right, Hollywood, why do you want to do this play?”
“Why not?”
“Are you crazy?”
“No, I don’t see why doing this play makes me crazy.”
“They won’t let you do it. I’m telling you. You’re asking for trouble.”
“OK, you jerks, will someone tell me what this is all about?” Cash said.
“It was this girl in Germany—” Jackson started to say.
“Holland,” I said.
“Yeah, Holland, anyway she was killed by the Nazis and . . .”
“What did you call the place?” Cash interrupted.
“Holland,” I said.
“I’ve heard of the place. They’ve got them windmills.”
“Well, I’ll be go to hell. You ain’t as stupid as I thought.”
“Screw you, Hollywood.”
“Thank you, Mr. McCall.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Greene.”
We had developed a routine, and nobody knew where it came from, that whenever one of us said, “screw you” the others were obliged to say “thank you” in response.
We had debated using a stronger vulgar word, but in the end Jackson told Cash that his mama would not approve of any vulgar language. Cash gave Jackson a dirty look.
“OK, one more time, why do you want to do this?” Jackson asked.
“Why not? You’ve got something against Jews, you bigot.”
“Shee-it, some of my best friends are Jews.”
“Yeah, they all look alike just like we do,” Cash said, and we all busted out laughing.
Then Jackson turned on the radio and it was playing the song about Kansas City, about Kansas City having the craziest way of loving.
“Man, we should go to Kansas City next,” Cash said.
“On a three day pass?”
“Why not?
“Cash, you’re crazy.”
“They’ve got the prettiest little women,” Cash said. End of argument.
“When it comes to poontang,” Jackson said, “Cash’s the man to see.”
“Shee-it, I know some people there.”
“What? You’ve got more gangster relatives there, too?”
Cash gave me one of his famous dirty looks and, as the radio blared on, we sang the song as loud as we could, at the top of our lungs. And the sun was shining. Things were good.
We were all innocent and pure, and there were no differences between people because it made better sense. And life was just a bowl of cherries and we were going to get some.
“I’m getting hungry,” Cash said.
He was always hungry. He ate like there was no tomorrow and for two people, literally. He ate everything that was put on his plate. And his plate was always clean when he finished.
I always kidded him that if he turned sideways nobody would find him, and he had better put some metal weight in his shoes; otherwise, the wind would lift him up and blow him away. Skinny as a rail.
“No, you ain’t,” I told him, about getting hungry.
We were getting near Nashville.
“OK, “Jackson said, “Nashville is big. We’ll find us a fine Negro greasy spoon joint, and we’ll get us something to eat there. We don’t want no sit-in incidents, right Hollywood?”
“Screw you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Greene.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Jackson.”
“You know what I like about this country?” Cash shouted and he stood in the back of the car.
“What?” I shouted.
“Poontang!”
Cash shouted at the top of his lungs and the driver of a heavy ass truck we were now passing saw Cash standing, and the trucker blew his horn. We busted out laughing.
Yeah, life was fine and poontang was fine, and Cash, Jackson and me we were fine. And the sun along with the wind hitting you on the face was mighty fine. And if people did not have a sense of humor about life in general, or sit-ins in particular; well, tell them to go jump in the lake.
“Yeah, I’ll do the Diary of Anne Frank play just to piss off the local KKK. And I’ll even go and find me a black girl and cast her as Anne Frank, that’ll teach ‘em a lesson.”
“Yeah, Hollywood, that’s the ticket,” Cash said, approvingly.
“Hollywood, the only lesson is the one you’re going to get from the powers that be when they castrate you. But I got to hand it to you, you’re just a dumb asshole who thinks he can change the world all by his lonesome,” Jackson said.
“He’s just dumb, that’s for sure,” Cash seconded.
“Well, boys, thank you for them kind compliments.”
We had no problem finding a Negro joint, as Jackson put it, to get us something to eat once we got into Nashville, and no sit-in dramas were necessary.
The girls back in St. Louis had been fine looking. And Cash that crazy bastard did have a patter that seemed to impress those black beauties. In no time, he had them laughing and carrying on eager to do his bidding, as if he had promised to make them all beauty queens.
“It was more like you appealed to their mothering instincts that made them act, as if they were dealing with a child, shee-it,” I said.
“Greene, you dirty son of a whore. How can you say that? A child don’t have a wanger as big as mine,” he protested.
“What are you getting so sore about?”
“Because you’re always giving me crap.”
“Well, if you stop acting like a child, maybe I wouldn’t get on your case. Besides, you deserve it.”
“Deserve it? My ass.”
Jackson laughed and he and I exchanged high fives. We always liked to get on Cash’s case especially because he thought of himself as the supreme ladies’ man—bar none. It was one aspect of his territorial personality.
The girls made me think of ancient Nubian princesses. Tall, regal, perfect teeth, big asses, swaying and swishing to and fro probably to ancient rhythms in their heads that only they heard and understood.
While we, guys, were all sex-predators, and our tongues were hanging out, and it was everyman for himself.
As we were coming up to an intersection, we saw a group of girls waiting for the light to change and cross the street. I accelerated to beat the red light.
The next thing I knew, there was Cash standing in the back of the car waiving at the girls, and yelling at me in his high screeching, nasal, whiny voice.
“Wilrounmafuk, wilrounmafuk, wilrounmafuk . . .”
“What?”
“Wilrounmafuk, wilrounmafuk.”
“What’s he saying,” I asked Jackson, who was laughing his head off.
“Don’t you understand what he’s saying?”
“No. What does he want?”
“What do you think he wants when he sees poontang?”
Jackson gave me a look that pretty much said I was just too stupid not to understand what Cash was shouting about.
“Wilrounmafuk, wilrounmafuk, wilrounmafuk.”
“Why in the hell does he talk his Negro shit now?”
“Wilrounmafuk, wilrounmafuk, wilrounmafuk.”
“He wants you to make a U-turn, and he’s calling you a most distinguished English word,” Jackson said slowly, as if teaching a young child how to be polite to his elders.
“Man, why doesn’t he stop his crazy gibberish?”
“Shupanwilrounmafuk.”
I slammed on the brakes and Cash almost flew out of the car. I made a fast U-turn and raced back to the intersection but, as luck would have it, just as we got there the light changed against us, and a police cruiser pulled up to the intersection perpendicular to us.
“Go through you stupid jerk, go through,” Cash said, shouting, suddenly finding his normal voice and normal English.
“We’ve got company, you dumb ass.”
“Sonovabitch. The fuzz just got here. Sonovabitch,” Jackson said.
“Screw the fuzz,” Cash said.
“Are you crazy? We get busted here and there ain’t no captain Rowe to bail us out. We’ll spend the rest of our lives in a chain gang. Besides, in case you conveniently forgot, we’re not supposed to be this far away from the base.”
And it was true. Our three-day pass did not allow us to be hundreds of miles from Fort Bragg. We all knew it, but we did not care. Man, we were going to live forever. What would they do to us? Draft us into the Army?
Two big burly white cops were inside the car eyeing us. Cash sat down. The light changed. I moved up across the intersection slowly. As the police sat in their car, Jackson waved at them while the cops gave us a hard, cold stare. Cash sat in the back moaning and groaning like his life was oozing out of him.
“Hollywood, you dog breath! You let ‘em pigs steal my poontang, you yellow, dirty, rotten, piece of dog shit, bastard, you’s lower than a snake. I’m gonna hold it against your white ass that you kept me from my beauties. I ain’t never gonna forgive you. And you, Jackson?”
“Yeah, the man failed the test.”
“Screw you both.”
“Thank you, Mr. Greene.” They answered in unison.
“You’re welcome Mr. McCall and Mr. Jackson.”
“Go around the block,” Jackson said.
“Why?”
“Maybe we can catch them on the other side.”
So I drove around the block and back to the intersection, but the girls had disappeared. We could not see them anywhere. Cash was pretending to be so disappointed, and continued with his moaning while Jackson and I laughed our heads off.
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